Materials delivered last week - and survived

Ordering all the materials and getting them to the site was a challenge in itself. First, the promised logs (builders posts) were not available until a day after the original planned delivery date, so everything was put back a day; orders from each H&G department, the barge and truck operator, my day off.

So the new D day was Thursday 22 Jan. The day before that I happened to find out that H&G had got their dates wrong and had, several days before, dropped all of the sheet materials to cargo wharf. So, by this time there was a large heap of contorted and rain marked gyprock and weathertex boards sitting at cargo. The roofing and guttering were also delivered a couple of days early but there was no weather damage. Things weren't looking good - so far two departments out of two got it wrong.

On the actual delivery date there were still some fun and games to happen. The barge operator thought that the new delivery time had shifted back from noon to 9am (I don't know why he thought that). The timber delivery truck dropped the logs, treated pine and bracing ply. For most of this the driver used the crane, but as he'd packed everything down before he realised that he hadn't yet unloaded the ply, we tried taking the 6 packed sheets off by hand. It looked simpler than it really was. Halfway down it slipped. A bit of damage to the ply, and a small but freely flowing gash to the hand of the driver. He proceeded to bleed over the ply while completing the unload. I haven't got the stuff up to the island yet and already blood has been spilt.

To add to the test of the driver's patience, and mine, he drove off without unloading the seperately packed hardwood. After he left I had a chance to check the delivery docket more thoroughly, realised the mistake and called H&G. They got the driver to turn around and come back.

The roofing and guttering (which had been returned to H&G the day before) was still laying forgotten at the depot, so fortunately another call got H&G to get into gear and do a special run back up the beaches. The gyprock delivery was thankfully uneventful. They replaced what had been damaged earlier.

The barge operator had some issues of his own, including the recent onset of the need for a knee reconstruction. The load was bigger than he expected, and couple that with the mix up over the delivery time, it meant that the job was spread over two days rather than 3 hours. The bill is still to come in. He and his boys did do a valiant job. The site is difficult and is about a 50m hand-carry from the vehicle, and it was a hot muggy Sydney day.

So, all in, only a little damage, and stocktake shows its pretty much all there. A few things to sort out - they've sent me mismatching bearers, so some sit about 7mm higher than others. Also, their measurements of dimensions are definitely maximums - so if an order was for 140mm of whatever, chances are it will be closer to 130mm. Do I accept some shrinkage in the timber drying process or am I being ripped off - I don't know!